


The Widows

by Violsva



Series: The Landlady [5]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, F/F, Great Hiatus, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 08:16:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7525168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violsva/pseuds/Violsva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wives and widows and writing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Widows

**Author's Note:**

> For Watson's Woes [July Writing Prompt #18](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/1577040.html).

I wanted to write about Mary. So I did, the circumstances fitting easily into the life of my literary persona - more easily that they would have if I had kept my own sex in my stories. But when I started to adapt other cases, it made things harder - primarily explaining why I was still living with Holmes, when the fictional Dr. John Watson had married and moved out and started his own practice. But I also kept accidentally making references to my legal marriage, the one after the case of Lord St. Simon, the one to Holmes. Sometimes I was more or less factual, sometimes I tried to hold to an invented timeline, and I am sure it all became a complete muddle.

The problem was that I did not want to erase either of them. Mary did not come with us on cases, and I had painted Holmes as such an aloof, secretive fellow that fitting in her contributions would be hard even if she wanted her role to be emphasized in the stories, which she did not. We were both concerned about how those who knew my true identity would react to more evidence, even literary evidence, of our true relationship. But I could not imagine utterly leaving her out, and yet I did not want it to seem as if she and Holmes were in competition.

“I don’t _mind_ , Jane,” she said once, and it was a little over a year after Holmes’ death, and I was thinking about the case of the cardboard box and Holmes’ fits of philosophy, and I snapped at her.

“ _I_ mind! You are all I have, you are the only support I have now - I will not pretend I care nothing for you!”

“Oh, Jane,” she said. “I know you care.”

“I meant it, in _The Sign of the Four_ ,” I said. “You are my wife, whatever the law says - I have written all this about Holmes, and so little about you -”

“You don’t need to make up for it, Jane,” she said. “I - oh, my darling. I miss him too. And you have me, I am not going anywhere - you do not have to - to -”

She stopped, because we were both tearful now, and neither of us wanted to say why I was writing so much about Holmes.

“You can focus on him, in the stories,” she said. “You have me in life, my dearest.”

**Author's Note:**

> (To allay the angst a little: although I haven't written it yet, in this 'verse Mary will survive the Hiatus.)


End file.
